Apple issues Lion Recovery Disk Assistant for external drives

Apple on Monday released Lion Recovery Disk Assistant software to enable users to create recovery partitions on external drives. The company also issued an update to its Logic Express and Logic Pro software.

Lion Recovery Disk Assistant expands Apple's Recovery features in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion to add support for creating a Recovery Disk on external drives. According to Apple's release notes for the software, the resulting partition has all of the same capabilities as the built-in Lion Recovery: reinstall Lion, repair the disk using Disk Utility, restore from a Time Machine backup, or browse the web with Safari.

Creating an external Lion Recovery using the assistant requires that the Mac already have an existing Recovery HD. The external drive must also have at least 1GB of free space, while Lion Recovery Disk Assistant is a 1.07MB download.

The new partition will not be visible in the Finder or Disk Utility on Mac OS X, but can be accessed by rebooting the Mac while holding the Option key.

Users are warned that the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant will erase all data on the external hard drive. Apple recommends either backing up data or creating a new partition on the drive before running the assistant.

Apple also notes that if the Recovery HD is created for a Mac that shipped with Lion, the external recovery drive can only be used with that system. However, if the the assistant is run on a Mac that upgraded to Lion from Mac OS X Snow Leopard, then the external recovery drives can be used on other systems that upgraded from Snow Leopard.

Max OS X Lion contains a number of advanced Recovery tools, in part because the update is deployed over the Mac App Store, rather than via optical disk as with previous OS X versions. The latest Macs, which ship with Lion pre-installed, include a new Internet Recovery feature that allows users to start a Mac directly from Apple's servers.

Lion arrived on July 20 and was downloaded more than 1 million times in the first 24 hours. The upgrade contains more than 250 new features, including AirDrop, Mission Control and full-screen apps.

Apple plans to release a $69 USB thumb drive loaded with Lion on its online store later this month.

Logic 9.1.5

Apple released Logic Express 9.15 and Logic Pro 9.1.5. The update improves stability and includes minor fixes, including: a fix for instrument and effect plug-ins that use LFO's synced to the beat, the Toggle Zoom key command now returns to previous zoom level and improved compatibility with Apogee's Duet 2.

Yes but many may wish to add this on an external TB drive and it would ba a waste not to partition it first

I'm told it creates a 650MB partition from the one you choose to resize. I imagine it's the same way the Lion installer creates a 650MB partition when it's installed. That means you don't lose any data when it's created.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

I'm told it creates a 650MB partition from the one you choose to resize. I imagine it's the same way the Lion installer creates a 650MB partition when it's installed. That means you don't lose any data when it's created.

i just run the software and created a usb lion recovery disk but i didn't get the resize option?

I didn't really buy it for the speed -- rather for the capacity, reliability and serviceability.

This AM I randomly removed a drive while the RAID was running. It it immediately recognized that a physical 2TB HDD component was missing and continued on using the logical 10 TB as if nothing happened.

On replacing the drive the system recognized it, and that it was out of sync with the logical drive and began rebuilding it to assimilate into the logical drive.

What I primarily use the capacity for is home media library, Purchased Movies, and Music, Home Movies and Photos.

I have 3 grandkids who all play soccer -- that's 3 games a week. Each game just fits on an 8GB AVCHD SD card (in compressed format). Each game expands to about 58 GB.

It adds up pretty quickly.

But the speed really helps too - especially when ingesting, transcoding, manipulating and rendering video with iMove or Final Cut Pro X.

BTW, AAPL market cap is within $8 Billion of XOM -- to become the highest valued company in the world.

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The recovery partition (whether on your system HD or an external device) is pretty lame, it doesn't even have the necessary OS files on there to do a reinstall, it downloads them. Far better is to do a full Snow Leopard install on that external device, and have the Lion App Store bundle downloaded on there.

Can you use this Recovery Disk for Time Machine backups so you'd have the latest backup on it?

As you create separate partitions for Time Machine and for the Recovery Disk first.

I don't know if the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant allows you to partition the drive. If it does not, of course you can use Disk Utility to create the partitions. Then use this Assistant to create the Recovery Disk on one partition, and use the other partition for Time Machine backups.

Interesting comment. Can you explain why they should have released a DVD and why they are idiots?

"the resulting partition has all of the same capabilities as the built-in Lion Recovery: reinstall Lion, repair the disk using Disk Utility, restore from a Time Machine backup, or browse the web with Safari."

This should have been a DVD, not wasting space on your drive... You shouldn't have to buy or burn your own media for something that should have been made available in cheap/reliable format.

They're idiots for not doing this. Just my opinion..

I've been using Apple computers since the II+. I think they're idiots for abandoning a known way of OS distribution, install, and recovery, too soon. It will happen, but the world isn't ready for it yet.. and to have to jump through all these extra steps for something that normally wouldn't have to be done, is dumb.

"the resulting partition has all of the same capabilities as the built-in Lion Recovery: reinstall Lion, repair the disk using Disk Utility, restore from a Time Machine backup, or browse the web with Safari."

This should have been a DVD, not wasting space on your drive... You shouldn't have to buy or burn your own media for something that should have been made available in cheap/reliable format.

They're idiots for not doing this. Just my opinion..

I've been using Apple computers since the II+. I think they're idiots for abandoning a known way of OS distribution, install, and recovery, too soon. It will happen, but the world isn't ready for it yet.. and to have to jump through all these extra steps for something that normally wouldn't have to be done, is dumb.

AT THE VERY LEAST Apple could have made some half-ass effort to make a cute little burner that would automate downloading, and then burning onto a disc

but nope.

1) Most people int eh world don't use the internet. But if these people aren't Apple's target then it's a moot point.

2) Yeah, they could have. They could even have made it versatile enough to burn to a crapload of floppy discs. But that's not Apple. If you want a copy of Lion on a DVD then burn one. If you want a full copy on a USB drive then make one. The instructions should be easy for anyone on this forum, everyone else can spend $69 (which is $60 less than what Mac OS used to cost) for a USB drive version.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"